Jason Nixon, Sundre-area MLA and Alberta's minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services, has been named the sector minister of the new continuing care provincial health agency.
The new agency is one of four being created by the Smith government, the others being primary care, acute care and mental health and addiction.
“As the new sector minister for continuing care, I am committed to ensuring seniors, people with disabilities, people facing homelessness and other vulnerable Albertans are supported with comprehensive, wraparound services that meet both their medical and non-medical needs,” Nixon said in a release issued Wednesday.
“This change will not interrupt service delivery or impact funding in any way.“We will be looking to ensure all aspects of continuing care – including home care and community care – can be expanded in innovative ways to support people as their situations and needs evolve. We will be looking to make the system easier to access.
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The new continuing care health agency will provide “a new, unified approach will include a new, user-friendly online platform to connect partners and Albertans to continuing care supports and enable people to request the services they need directly,” he said.
“And we won’t be doing this in isolation – we are establishing a transitional committee that will help guide the transformation, and we will be consulting with key organizations, operators and experts.”
In the same Oct. 16 release, Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange said the new health agency “gives us the opportunity to broaden our efforts to care for all Albertans who need daily supports and services in continuing care homes, supportive living or through home and community care.”
Creating the continuing care provincial agency will shift more care to the community, enhance workforce capacity, increase choice and innovation, and improve quality, she said.
Lori Sigurdson, Alberta NDP shadow minister for seniors, continuing care and homecare, issued a statement on Wednesday in response to the continuing care announcement.
“Today’s continuing care announcement is the second day in a row where Albertans see the UCP reshuffling deck chairs on a sinking ship instead of fixing health care,” said Sigurdson.
“These new administrative changes do not build a single new continuing care bed or offer more service for our loved ones who are stuck without options between hospital and home.
“This doesn’t solve the very real problem of motel medicine that Danielle Smith created. The UCP’s idea today is sending people a meal using an app versus actually getting them the care they desperately need.”
